The King’s Guard are the soldiers who mount sentry duty at Buckingham Palace, St James’s Palace, Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. They wear scarlet tunics and tall black bearskin caps, they stand still, and they are among the most photographed people in Britain.
They are also serving infantry, armed, on a genuine operational posting.
Who they are
Duty is provided by the Household Division — five regiments of Foot Guards and two of Household Cavalry:
- Grenadier Guards — buttons evenly spaced, white plume on the left of the bearskin.
- Coldstream Guards — buttons in pairs, red plume on the right.
- Scots Guards — buttons in threes, no plume at all.
- Irish Guards — buttons in fours, blue plume on the right.
- Welsh Guards — buttons in fives, white-green-white plume on the left.
Counting the buttons is the reliable way to identify the regiment, and it is a small pleasure once you know.
These are not ceremonial units. The Foot Guards are fighting infantry who have served in every recent British operation including Iraq and Afghanistan, and guard duty rotates with those deployments.
The bearskin
Around 18 inches tall, weighing about 1.5kg, and made from the fur of the Canadian black bear. The hat originates from the French Imperial Guard at Waterloo, whose bearskins the British Grenadiers took as a trophy of victory — which is why the Grenadier Guards wear them and why the regiment carries that name.
The fur is the subject of a long-running campaign by animal welfare groups. Synthetic alternatives have been tested repeatedly by the Ministry of Defence and have so far failed on shedding water — a bearskin must not become waterlogged in the rain, and no substitute has yet matched it. The argument continues.
The rules for visitors
Worth knowing, because people get this wrong constantly:
- Do not touch them. They are on duty and armed.
- Do not obstruct them. A sentry patrols a set beat, and anyone standing in it will be given a shouted warning — “Make way for the Queen’s Guard!”, updated to King’s — at full volume and with no advance notice. It happens to somebody most days and it is genuinely startling.
- Do not try to make them laugh. They will not respond, and the attempt is tiresome for everyone including the other tourists.
- Photographs are entirely fine.
Sentries at Buckingham Palace were moved behind the railings in 2011 after too many incidents with the public. At Windsor and Horse Guards they are still on open ground, which is why the mounted troopers at Horse Guards get the worst of it.
Standing still
A sentry typically stands for two hours at a stretch, moving in a set drill at intervals. The heat under a bearskin and a wool tunic in summer is considerable, and fainting happens — the standing instruction is not to lock the knees.
The Changing of the Guard is the formal handover between detachments, and is covered separately.